Yesterday, my beloved cousin Suzanne lost a brutal battle with Leukemia. She was a 37-year-old mother who had been married for less than 3 years, and a parent for 2. These numbers have no business being final, and they are made all the more heartbreaking by the fact that Suzi was one of the most joyous, generous, and sensitive people I have ever known. She once said that becoming a mother completed her, and yet she was forced to spend the last quarter of her brief time as a parent being tortured in a hospital bed.

It's enough to make you want to destroy this world in the hope that it might be replaced with one that makes an ounce of sense.

There are hordes of distraught people in mourning today, my wife and I among them. I find myself shifting between overwhelming grief and violent rage. Suzi's passing is truly one of the greatest tragedies of my life and the lives of many, many others, all of whom will now attempt to make the future of Suzi's immediate family as bearable, and eventually beautiful, as possible without her.

Right now it seems impossible.

Still, we must begin somewhere, and so one of Suzi's friends was thoughtful enough to start a fundraiser for Suzi's beautiful daughter, Jacqueline. Please share this with anyone who might consider a donation, and know that my cousin was the rarest of birds in this crazy, crazy world. She was honest and good.